HYDROPHOBIA AND RABIES. 



225 



cruel but decisive experiments. It was during 

 the heat of summer, and they were all chained in 

 the full blaze of the sun. To one salted meat 

 was given, to the second water only, and to the 

 third neither food nor drink. They all died, but 

 none of them became rabid. Nor does the sus- 

 picion that the disorder may have some connec- 

 tion with the rutting period in these animals ap- 

 pear to rest on any better foundation. 



Some very interesting points still remain to 

 be considered as to the communication of these 

 diseases from one person or animal to another. 



Mr. Youatt, whose experience on this sub- 

 ject was very large, did not think that the saliva 

 of a rabid animal could communicate the disor- 

 der through the unbroken cuticle. He believed 

 that there must be some abrasion or breach of 

 surface. He held, however, that it might be 

 communicated by the mere contact of the saliva 

 with the mucous membranes. Of its harmless- 

 ness on the sound skin he offered this presump- 

 tive evidence — that his own hands had many 

 times been covered with the saliva of the mad 

 dog with perfect impunity. He has recorded 

 some singular instances in which hydrophobia 

 and rabies were caused by contact of the mor- 

 bid saliva with the mucous membranes. A man 

 endeavored to untie by the help of his teeth a 

 knot that had been firmly drawn in a cord. 

 Eight weeks afterward he died undeniably hy- 

 drophobic. It was then recollected that with 

 this cord a mad dog had been tied up. A wom- 

 an was attacked by a rabid dog, and escaped 

 with some rents in her gown. In the act of 

 mending it sfae thoughtlessly pressed down the 

 seam with her teeth. She also died. Horses are 

 said to have died mad after eating straw upon 

 which rabid pigs had died. Portal was assured 

 that two dogs which had licked the mouth of 

 another dog that was rabid were attacked with 

 rabies seven or eight days afterward. Mr. Gil- 

 man, of Highgate, in a little pamphlet on Hydro- 

 phobia, quotes an instance from Dr. Perceval, in 

 which a mad dog licked the face of a sleeping 

 man, near his mouth, and the man died of hydro- 

 phobia, although the strictest search failed to 

 discover the smallest scratch or abrasion on any 

 part of his skin. These facts, if authentic, settle 

 the question ; unless, indeed, the lips of those 

 who perished happened to have been chapped or 

 abraded. 



It is a fearful question whether the saliva of 

 a human being afflicted with hydrophobia is ca- 

 pable of inoculating another human being with 

 the same disease. Mr. Youatt says it is, that 



51 



the disease has undoubtedly been so produced. 

 If this be so, the fact should teach us — not to 

 desert or neglect these unhappy patients, still 

 less to murder them by smothering, or by bleed- 

 ing them to death — but to minister to their 

 wants with certain precautions ; so as not to 

 suffer their saliva to come in contact with any 

 sore or abraded surface, nor, if it can be avoided, 

 with any mucous surface. On the other hand, 

 all carefulness of that kind will be superfluous if 

 the disease cannot be propagated by the human 

 saliva. Certainly many experimenters have tried 

 in vain to inoculate dogs with the spittle of an hy- 

 drophobic man ; but there is one authentic experi- 

 ment on record which makes it too probable that 

 the disease, though seldom or with difficulty com- 

 municated, may yet be commumcable. The experi- 

 ment is said to have been made by MM. Magendie 

 and Breschet, at the Hotel Dieu, in Paris, and to 

 have been witnessed by a great number of medi- 

 cal men and students. Two healthy dogs were 

 inoculated on June 19, 1813, with the saliva of a 

 patient named Surlu, who died the same day in 

 the hospital. One of these dogs became mad on 

 the 27th of the following month. They caused 

 this dog to bite others, which in their turn be- 

 came rabid also ; and in this way the malady was 

 propagated among dogs during the whole sum- 

 mer. Now this, though a very striking statement, 

 ought not to be considered conclusive, for it is pos- 

 sible that the disease in the first dog might have 

 had some unknown and unsuspected origin. We 

 have enough, however, in this one experiment to 

 make us observe all requisite caution when en- 

 gaged in attending upon an hydrophobic pa- 

 tient. 



In an elaborate and valuable treatise on 

 " Rabies and Hydrophobia," Mr. George Fleming 

 adduces conflicting evidence as to the safety or 

 danger of drinking the milk of a rabid animal, 

 and he wisely advises the avoidance of such 

 milk. Pertinent to this question I have received 

 from Mr. Wrench, of Baslow, even while this pa- 

 per is passing through the press, the following 

 history, which shows that the disease is trans- 

 missible from the mother to her offspring through 

 the medium of her milk : 



" In the middle of May, 1876, on Mr. Twigg's 

 farm, Harewood Grange, near Chatsworth, a mad 

 dog bit eighteen sheep out of a flock of twent t y- 

 one, which were at the time suckling thirty lambs. 

 The sheep were all bitten about the /ace, and had 

 evidently been defending their lambs during the 

 greater part of the night in which the attack was 

 made. Mr. Twigg examined both sheep and 



